This, again, is in the merest outline the plan adopted by Haydn.
Whether he used three or four movements, the principle was the same--a
quick beginning, a slow middle, and a quick ending; afterwards, each
movement grew longer, but the way in which he lengthened them can better
be treated later when we come to his bigger works.
From the first he used counterpoint, canon, imitation, and all the
devices of the contrapuntal style. But the difference between his newer
style and that of Wagenseil and the rest is that he neither uses
counterpoint of any sort nor chord figures to make up the true substance
of the music, but merely as devices to help him in maintaining a
continuous flow of melody. That melody, as has already been said, might
be in the top or bottom part, or one of the middle parts; but though it
may, and, indeed, always did pause at times, as the melody of a song
pauses at the end of each line, it is unbroken from beginning to end.
The first part of a movement might be compared to the first line of a
song: there is a pause, but we expect and get the second line; there is
another pause, and we get a line which is analogous to the "working-out"
section, and the last line, ending in the original key if not on the
same note, corresponds to the final section of the movement, after which
we expect nothing more, the ear being quite satisfied.
Pages:
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39